When
Van Taylor vacated his seat in the
Texas Senate to run for Congress, Paxton joined the race for
District 8 in September 2017. Paxton ran against businessman Phillip Huffines in the Republican primary. At over $10 million spent between the two campaigns, the race was the most expensive Senate primary in Texas history. Her husband's campaign guaranteed her a $2 million loan. Paxton won the primary by nine points and narrowly defeated Democratic challenger Mark Phariss in the general election. In February 2019, Paxton introduced Senate Bill 860, which would grant
her husband the power to issue exemptions from securities regulations. Billed as a
consumer protection effort, the proposal would allow approved individuals to serve as investment advisers without registering with the state board. Paxton said the bill to change state securities law "has literally nothing to do" with a criminal case charging her husband Ken Paxton with defrauding investors. Her husband was impeached by the
Texas House of Representatives as the
Attorney General of Texas on May 27, 2023. When Paxton declined to recuse herself from the trial, she was barred by the Texas Senate from voting on her husband's impeachment. The impeachment trial began on September 5, 2023, in the 31-member Texas Senate. Ken Paxton was acquitted of all charges on September 16, 2023. In February 2025, Paxton authored Senate Bill 13, which would move control of
school library catalogs from
librarians to boards of parents appointed by
school board members, allowing parents to have any library book immediately
removed from shelves until a decision by the school board. ==Personal life==